Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) (25 page)

“Trust me,” said Beretta. “You'll know.”

There was nothing left for them but to walk straight into the lion's den. A fool could see that. If they ran, they would be found—and they'd have nothing anyway. Better to die fighting than to be run down somewhere in the middle of nowhere, living a life in fear.

“What do you think?” he asked Helen.

She was beautiful and smart and confident, and he loved her for all of that. For everything she was. It felt so goddamn good to stop denying himself, to stop denying her. He loved her fire. He loved her grit.

He loved her.

Closeness to him didn't have to be a death sentence. He could make sure of it. He would make her happy and safe, forever.

“I think you're the dumbest smart man I've ever met.”

Beretta smiled. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

“Like I said.” Helen smiled back. “Dumbest smart man.”

“All right.” Beretta clapped his hands. “Time's wasting. I have to make one more phone call. There's a man who's gonna to be dying to know about this meeting.”

––––––––

I
n the early morning, the
Hell's Belle
was a much different animal than it was in the evenings. The bar was sparsely populated—only the drunkest of the drunks and the workers remained. The drunks were asleep at the bar, slumped on their stools. The workers shambled from one table to the next, wiping them down and setting up the chairs.

When Beretta entered, he was patted down thoroughly by two large men with shotguns—the same bodyguards that had been flanking Ivan the night before. The taste of chocolate was on his mouth.

He'd stopped at a gas station before arriving to quickly down a chunky bar of the stuff. If he was going to die, by god, he was going to do it with something sweet in his stomach. The small boost of caffeine from the chocolate wired his thoughts and made everything a little bit more focused.

Ivan himself was set up at a table, waiting patiently and smoking a cigar. A tall glass of whiskey was in front of him, the bottle on the table mostly empty. The liquor's brand was expensive—Ivan had money to spare.

“I don't see what the point of this is,” said Ivan. “I told you to get out of my town. You know I'm just going to kill you, don't you? You're not really giving me much of a choice.”

“Maybe,” said Beretta. “Honestly, I think if you were going to kill me, you would have done it already. You don't want a war with the Wrecking Crew. And I made a couple of calls, and they know you're after us. If we die, if we disappear, they'll know who's done it.”

Ivan took this without much reaction.

“Then we go to war,” he said. “The kind of bankroll I got? I could go to war with ten gangs like yours.”

“Maybe so,” said Beretta. “Even if that's true, if you want me dead, you'll have to get in line.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Answering his question, a long luxury Cadillac pulled up from outside. Beretta could see it arrive through the dirty glass windows of the
Belle
. Its heavy engine rumbled off, and after a few moments, two tall men in expensive suits walked into the bar. They were Hispanic and wore thick, dark sunglasses.

“Who the fuck is this?” said Ivan. “Did you bring...is that the fucking Cartel you brought in my bar? In
my
bar?”

Ivan's bodyguards tried to pat them down—and were quickly rebuffed. Seeing this happen, Ivan reluctantly let them come forward.

Beretta smiled and called the men over. They sat down at the table and straightened themselves simultaneously. Their guns were visible in the shoulder holsters beneath their jackets.

“You don't know me,” said Beretta. “You did all your dealings with my Prez, Ace. But still, you know that I owe you money.”

The Cartel men nodded. Their faces cold and stoic.

“I want you to know that we had your money. But this man,” he pointed at Ivan, “stole it from us. So we can't pay you back. If you have any beef with us, you should take it up with him.”

The Cartel men looked at Ivan and then back at Beretta. Ivan, hearing this, started laughing. A little tear streamed down one eye and down his cheek and he banged the table.

“You can't be fucking serious,” said Ivan. “That's your plan? That's how you're getting out of trouble?  Jesus Christ. Doesn't everyone call you the smart one in your little group? Aren't you the man with the plan?”

He laughed still, slapping the Cartel men on the back. They smiled, unsure. Their guns were right within their grasp and there was no doubt in his mind they'd killed before. If they drew, he'd be dead in a heartbeat.

“I tell you what. You boys speak English pretty good, right?” They nodded and Ivan tapped the table.  “Yeah, I stole money from him. Fair and square. He owes you cash? Fine. How about I pay you double what he owes you to kill this fucker for me? How's that? How's that for a
war
, Beretta?”

The war wasn't quite started yet.

There was another rumbling outside—this one deeper and heavier than what the Cartel had arrived. Like there was a train rolling by just outside. The nearest tracks were on the other side of town, but the rumbling was nearer by the second.

Outside, they could hear gunfire—hard staccato shots bouncing off heavy metal. The rumbling continued to close on the bar. Metal crunched and explosions sounded. Ivan and the Cartel stood up, facing the wall. Beretta, having an idea of what was coming, was the only one to start running to the back of the bar.

A fully-armored APC broke through the wall of the bar, tearing it apart. Bodies flew everywhere. Sparks showered and smoke gathered as appliances were split apart, wiring was uncovered, and small fires started congregating like church members after a prayer.

This was Beretta's cavalry. His plan, the whole time, was to group all his enemies together and hope that somehow he could thrive in the chaos. His plan was to create as much of an absence of a plan as possible. It made a certain sort of poetic sense to him after all his other plans had gotten so horribly busted.

He was dead anyway if he didn't do this; he figured it was as good a shot at any at sorting the mess out.

The Cartel members were knocked down to the ground from the tank's entrance. Beretta ran to one and pulled his gun away from him, shooting him dead. Then the other. Bang, bang, simple and quick. He didn't want to leave anyone with any time to react.

He scanned the wreckage, the smoky destruction all around him. Ivan was nowhere to be found.

The hatch on top of the APC burst open, and Rattler appeared. His eyes were bloodshot and crazed, and he held a pair of pistols in his hands. Beretta was not surprised to see him; he was the one who had called him.

“Motherfucker!” he roared. “Where the fuck is my money?”

Beretta had honestly not expected Rattler to come in a tank, though he supposed it had worked out well enough so far. Where the man had even
gotten
a tank was beyond him. Maybe his ten million dollars had been fifteen million at some point. Rattler had enough contacts and pay-offs in the police department to pick up anything he wanted from them.

Ivan's bodyguards gathered themselves and started shooting at Rattler. Still climbing out of the APC, he took aim and fired, taking them down, laughing maniacally all the way.

“Money!” he roared again, shooting over and over. “Mine! Where is it?”

“Rattler, Christ almighty!”  Ivan stepped out into the open, hands up. “You ruined my bar!”

“You stole my fucking money!” Rattler shouted. “Now where is it?”

“I never stole your money,” said Ivan, pointing to Beretta. “That was him.”

They were all about twenty feet apart. Smoke hazed between them, fires burning brightly in the roof above.

Rattler turned to Beretta now, guns jabbing forward. “Where is it?”

“He stole it from
me
, like I told you on the phone,” said Beretta. “You want it, you gotta talk to him.”

Letting out another roar of rage, Rattler turned back on Ivan and shot him in the thigh, dropping him.

“Somebody start fucking talking!”

With Rattler's attention on Ivan, Beretta took his chance—firing three shots and landing, hitting Rattler square in the head.

Rattler dropped hard, rage twisting his face—rage, even to the end. His body clawed and twitched, struggling to fire his gun one more time, but the strength just wasn't there.

There was a scuffling and a sneeze, and then a heavy bout of swearing. Prowler, the fighter, stepped out from the shadows, dangling a gun from a finger. Beretta had him dead to rights, but Prowler had his hands up.

“I'm gonna throw this down, okay?” he said. “Just let me go.”

“You fucking
pussy
!” Ivan cried. He was on the floor, struggling to move on a pile of rubble. “Fucking
fight
him, you coward!”

Beretta shrugged and nodded at Prowler, who tossed down his weapon and ran out the back. No sense in killing someone who had surrendered.

Well, maybe if that person was Ivan...

Outside, there was chaos still. Gunshots and shouts. The occasional clatter of glass and banging of metal. But largely, it was cleaning up—Locke and Tank were moving up and cleaning up the trash that Rattler had left out in the open outside.

It was over.

Beretta walked over the gathered rubble of the collapsed ceiling and broken bar to where Ivan struggled on the ground. A pool of blood was underneath him—a whole lot of blood.

“In the leg,” Ivan said. “In the fucking leg. You know this is fatal, right? It'll kill me dead. Bullet split the artery, I bet.”

“Good,” said Beretta, and he meant it.

Ivan's smile was grim. “Maybe not for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'll be dead, and you won't know where I've stashed the money. I
hid
it. What, you think I just put ten million dollars away in the basement or some shit? Maybe tossed it into a motel like an idiot? Give me a little credit here.” Ivan laughed. “I'll be dead, and you'll never have one red cent!”

Beretta looked at the blood gathering around Ivan. It was coming fast, but there was still time.

“I've got a few thoughts on that.”

––––––––

P
utting a tourniquet together was medicine 101. Helen had it done and Ivan stabilized within two minutes of being on the scene. She had been following right behind Tank and Locke—and when Beretta started calling for her, she came running.

Now, they were far away from the wreckage of the
Hell's Belle
. Far away, indeed, from the town of Stockland. With as much firepower as had been unloaded there in the last twenty-four hours, it seemed like only a matter of time before the cops really unleashed themselves there to reassert control.

Even bribed and threatened, they could take only so much—and besides that, Rattler was dead. As soon as they found that out, maybe they'd try their hand at real law enforcement again. As far as Helen knew, the only people who had been affected by all the firefighting had been people in the various gangs—but still, gunfights were gunfights and explosions were explosions, and no one liked living near them. A populace could only take so much on a given weekend.

The Wrecking Crew and their new hostage holed up behind an abandoned gas station well off from the highway. Ivan was led inside and set down on a table, tied there with several straps. With the remaining medical supplies from Beretta's original theft from the hospital, Helen had stabilized him and killed his pain, sedating him.

Soon, she would wake him up. For now, she stood outside the gas station, out of sight of the road, next to Beretta. The sun was coming down over the ridge, casting long shadows on the two of them from the rocky hills nearby.

“If we do this,” she said to Beretta, “we do it my way.”

“You're the Nurse,” he said, smiling.

He moved in to kiss her—and god she wanted to kiss him right back—but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“That's not what I mean. I mean no killing.”

Now, he frowned. It was a very Ace-like frown. “You serious? This guy'll kill us in a heartbeat. We can't afford many enemies.”

“I don't care. No more killing. Killing is what started all of this. If you want this money, you'll let me do this how I want.”

Beretta huffed. “You know, you need that money too. You're on the Cartel's list. If we don't pay them...they'll come after us. Those two at the bar weren't the end of it.”

“Even so. We do this my way or we don't do it at all.”

Locke had been looking over Tank and Beretta's bike, making sure they weren't damaged in any of the fighting. He stood up off the ground and approached, a wrench in hand.

“I don't want to make any decisions for you, boss, but if we turn him in and we have the money, we can just bribe the cops till they do what we want.”

She could see that Beretta was considering it. He was a lot of things—stubborn one of them—but he wasn't ever a stupid man. He just liked his plans. But plans could change, and if anyone had been shown to be flexible over the last few days, it was certainly him.

Beretta shrugged. “Fine. Whatever.” He opened the door to the insides of the gas station. “Get to work.”

Helen collected herself. In preparation for this, she had dressed again in her scrubs. Working with slow deliberation, she slid a surgical mask over her face. Her breaths were steady and even as she entered the darkness of the gas station, seeing her materials already ready.

There was her bag with its instruments next to Ivan, and—just out of his line of sight—there were all the groceries. She would make use of all of them, probably. The light inside was dim, almost non-existent. Boards covered the windows and every surface was layered with grime and dirt.

The one place where there was light—powered by long cords from the SUV's battery—was over Ivan on the makeshift “operating table.” They had set up a couple of lamps there to keep his vision obscured with the brightness.

On the table, Ivan stirred, and he snapped awake when she broke open a small packet of smelling salts under his nose. His eyes focused slowly, and when they did, she positioned a lamp over his head to better blind him from the rest of the room.